Extreme food from around the world

A woman poses with a locust on her tongue at a discovery lunch in Brussels on Sept 20, 2012. Organisers of the event, which included cookery classes, want to draw attention to insects as a source of nutrition. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

Slaughtered rats are displayed for sale at Dinh Bang market, 20km outside Hanoi, on Jan 24, 2008. People of Dinh Bang village eat rats as well as other kinds of meat from animals such as pigs, cows, chickens or rabbits. 1kg of slaughtered rats costs 50,000 dong. (S$2.90). -- PHOTO: REUTERS

Residents living beside railroad tracks cut up a dog for consumption after it was run over by a train in Makita City, Manila on April 21, 2006. Dogs used to be considered a local delicacy in the upland regions of Luzon island but the eating of the animals was banned years ago by the government. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

Leonardo Lima da Silva, 17, offers for sale to passing vehicles an armadillo that he and his brother hunted down to earn some cash, near Maraba in the Brazilian Amazon region, on Aug 18, 2009. In spite of the government prohibition of the sale of wild animals for meat, many people in the region still hunt commercially for a living. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

A Haitian woman eats a mud pie in the volatile neighborhood of Cite-Soleil in Port-au-Prince on Feb 9, 2006. Made of mud, mud pies are sometimes the only food available for the poor in Haiti. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

A typical dish in ant sauce is seen in the restaurant Color de Hormiga in Barichara on May 19, 2009. Every year during the April-June season thousands of Colombian farmers and inhabitants of Santander province collect ants culonas (Atta Laevigata) as part of a traditional ritual in the region. The ants, named 'Culonas' for their big size, are cooked and sold as exotic, specialized food. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

Lemurs illegally killed by poachers in Madagascar to be sold to restaurants as 'luxury' bushmeat are seen in this undated handout photograph. Endangered lemur species found only in Madagascar are being slaughtered and served up in local restaurants as poachers take advantage of a security vacuum on the island after a coup earlier this year. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

Cooks at the Solar de las Cabecitas (House of the Little Heads) restaurant prepare their specialty, boiled sheep's head served on a bed of rice, in La Paz on Aug 17, 2006. The dish, a delicacy in the Andean mining city of Oruro where the salty highland pasture gives the lamb its particular flavor, is the specialty of the restaurant which counts among its clientele Bolivian Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca and President Evo Morales. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

Ms Bertha Piranes drops a skinned frog into a blender to make a drink at a market in San Juan de Lurigancho, Lima, on Aug 16, 2006. The drink, popular with working-class Peruvians, is believed to cure illnesses ranging from fatigue to sexual impotency. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

Lemurs illegally killed by poachers in Madagascar to be sold to restaurants as 'luxury' bushmeat are seen in this undated handout photograph. Endangered lemur species found only in Madagascar are being slaughtered and served up in local restaurants as poachers take advantage of a security vacuum on the island after a coup earlier this year. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

A visitor eats a fried scorpion at the Longhua temple fair during the May Day holiday in Shanghai on May 7, 2007. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

Ms Ai Baorong, who raises flies and yellow mealworms, tastes maggots to check their quality, at her small farm in Jiyang County, east China's Shandong province on April 11, 2007. Inspired by a report about making money by raising maggots in 2004, Ms Ai began to raise flies and yellow mealworms at her hometown after she learned the necessary skills from a college course. Now her farm produces 30 tons of maggots each month, a portion of which are exported to the United Kingdom and South Korea, local media reported. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

A vendor cuts dog meat for sale at his roadside stall in Duong Noi village, outside Hanoi on Dec 16, 2011. While animal rights activists have condemned eating dog meat as cruel treatment of the animals, it is still an accepted popular delicacy for some Vietnamese, as well in some other Asian countries. Duong Noi is well-known as a dog-meat village, where hundreds of dogs are killed each day for sale as popular traditional food. Dog-eating as a custom is rooted in Vietnam and was developed as a result of poverty. 1kg of dog meat costs about 130,000 dongs (S$7.60). -- PHOTO: REUTERS

A woman prepares a dish of camel liver at her shop in Tamboal village market in Al Jazeera on April 16, 2011. According to the Sudanese Ministry of Animals Resources in 2003, the country produced about 72,000 to 81,000 tonnes of camel meat annually from 1996 to 2002. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

A worker holds cobra meat after the snakes have been stripped of their skins, at a Chinese restaurant in the ancient city of Yogyakarta on April 1, 2011. Snake hunters catch about 1,000 cobras from Yogyakarta, Central Java and East Java provinces each week to harvest their meat for burgers, priced at 10,000 rupiah (S$1.30) each, as well as satay and other dishes. Some customers said they believe cobra meat can cure skin diseases and asthma, and increase sexual virility. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

A worker kills a cobra for its meat at a Chinese restaurant in the ancient city of Yogyakarta on April 1, 2011. Snake hunters catch about 1,000 cobras from Yogyakarta, Central Java and East Java provinces each week to harvest their meat for burgers, priced at 10,000 rupiah (S$1.30) each, as well as satay and other dishes. Some customers say they believe cobra meat can cure skin diseases and asthma, and increase sexual virility. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

A chef prepares a cobra meat burger at a Chinese restaurant in the ancient city of Yogyakarta on April 1, 2011. Snake hunters catch about 1,000 cobras from Yogyakarta, Central Java and East Java provinces each week to harvest their meat for burgers, priced at 10,000 rupiah (S$1.30) each, as well as satay and other dishes. Some customers said they believe cobra meat can cure skin diseases and asthma, and increase sexual virility. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

Mealworm quiches are seen at the Rijn IJssel school for chefs in Wageningen on Jan 12, 2011. All you need to do to save the rainforest, improve your diet, better your health, cut global carbon emissions and slash your food budget is eat bugs. Mealworm quiche, grasshopper springrolls and cuisine made from other creepy crawlies is the answer to the global food crisis, shrinking land and water resources and climate-changing carbon emissions, Dutch scientist Arnold van Huis says. To attract more insect-eaters, Van Huis and his team of scientists at Wageningen have worked with a local cooking school to produce a cookbook and suitable recipes. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

An indigenous Miskito woman sells turtle meat at a town market in Puerto Cabezas, along Nicaragua's Caribbean coast on Aug 25, 2010. Around five hundred turtles are sold for food per month in the port. The going rate for turtle meat is approximately S$1.35 per 0.45kg. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

A boy displays boiled rats for sale on the main highway in Malawi's capital Lilongwe on June 20, 2009. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

Rasima, a villager, dries 'ampo', a traditional snack made from clean, gravel-free dark earth, in Tuban, East Java province on March 29, 2010. Rasima is the village's only ampo producer, and can earn up to S$2.45 a day to supplement her family's income from farming. Although there is no medical evidence, villagers believe the soil snacks are an effective pain-killer and pregnant women are encouraged to eat them as it is believed to refine the skin of the unborn baby. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

A raw blood dish is displayed with cooked entrails at a restaurant in Hanoi on April 28, 2009. Frozen pudding from fresh duck or pig blood is a popular dish in the Southeast Asian country although duck blood is less consumed following bird flu outbreaks that have killed at least 55 Vietnamese since late 2003. In Vietnam, there appeared to be a degree of confusion towards swine flu which is not in fact linked to pigs alone -- but an assortment of swine, human and avian viruses. One bowl of raw blood costs 10,000 dong (60 Singapore cents). -- PHOTO: REUTERS

Men gather to get a bowl of siri paya, a traditional breakfast dish of goat heads and feet, in Lahore's Old City early morning on April 28, 2009. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

Dog meat or 'Dan go gi' in North Korean expression, is placed on a table at a famous restaurant in Pyongyang on Nov 13, 2008. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

Grilled rats are displayed for sale in Suphan Buri province, 120km north of Bangkok, on Nov 2, 2007. Once struggling to make ends meet in pest-infested villages, Thai rice farmers are now making money out of the very scourge that has gnawed at their finances: rats. Thailand is the world's biggest rice exporter and roasted bandicoot rat has become a popular delicacy at roadside stalls despite costing twice as much as pork or chicken. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

Thai farm employee Somsak Inta, 36, puts two house lizards in his mouth prior to eating them in Nakorn Nayok province, 60km away from Bangkok on April 9. Somsak started eating lizards when was 16 as a means to treat health problems, which he claims could not be cured by modern medicine. He has since been eating lizards for over 20 years, believing, among other things, it increases his sex drive. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

A boy from New York's Public School 7 from the Bronx holds an hors d'oeuvre prepared with an insect, before eating it at New York's Museum of Natural History, on April 20, 2004. Noted chefs were preparing inventive dishes for school children with insects as part of the Museum's 'Adventures in the Global Kitchen,' a programme that highlights cultures around the world through their cuisine. The Museum was launching the programme in conjunction with the release of the new Imax film A Rainforest Adventure-Bugs. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

A vendor selling deep-fried spiders poses with a spider as she waits for customers at bus station at Skun, Kampong Cham province, east of Phnom Penh on March 14 ,2009. It costs S$2.45 for 10 deep-fried spiders, which come seasoned with garlic. The fist-sized arachnids are crunchy on the outside and taste like cold, gooey chicken on the inside. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

San Smey, 4, eats a piece of roasted rat in the provincial town of Battambang, 290km north-west of the capital Phnom Penh on Feb 19, 2004. With meat-eaters shying away from chicken because of the deadly bird flu virus rampant across Asia, sales of rat are rocketing in the impoverished southeast Asian nation. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

A United Sates (US) Marine drinks cobra's blood during a jungle survival exercise with Thai Marines as part of "Cobra Gold 09" east of Bangkok on Feb 14, 2009. Thailand launched its annual war games on Feb 4, 2009 with troops from the US, Japan, Singapore and Indonesia linking up with Thai forces for two weeks of joint military exercises. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

A cook cuts pieces of roasted cats inside the kitchen of the restaurant Le Zoo chez Felix which serves bushmeat in Abidjan on April 11, 2008. Wild animal meat, called bushmeat in Africa, is a traditional part of the diet in many countries of the continent. From Ivory Coast in the west through Equatorial Guinea to Kenya in the east, poaching to feed the bushmeat market is rampant and it is threatening entire species, including man's closest relatives, the great apes. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

A Chinese woman eats from an ox and dog penis dish at the Guolizhuang "strength in the pot" penis restaurant in China's capital Beijing on March 3, 2006. The restaurant offers more than 30 types of animal penises served in a Chinese hotpot style. According to the theory of traditional Chinese medicine, the penis of certain animals is full of nutrients which brings men energy. And because it contains gelatine albumen, it is said to have excellent cosmetic effects for women, especially beneficial for the skin. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

A man slaughters snake at a restaurant at Le Mat, dubbed 'Snake Village, some 10 km east of Hanoi on May 9, 2007. Le Mat, a village of new houses, old shanty homes, winding alleys and ancient temples with Chinese-style roofs, is known for consuming snake meat as well as using the serpents for medicinal purposes and its supposed qualities as an aphrodisiac for men. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

Andean women display a dish of roasted cuy during a guinea pig festival in Huacho, northern Lima, on July 20, 2008. The one-day festival includes an animal show and a food and fashion contest which features the guinea pig, native to the Andes. Cuy, a traditional fried or roasted guinea pig dish, dates back at least fifteen centuries to pre-Incan times. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

Locusts and worms are seen on a spoon after being cooked with olive oil for a discovery lunch in Brussels on Sept 20, 2012. Organisers of the event, which included cookery classes, want to draw attention to insects as a source of nutrition. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

Hard-boiled eggs cooked in boys' urine lie inside a pot for sale in Dongyang, Zhejiang province on March 26, 2012. It's the end of a school day in the eastern Chinese city of Dongyang, and eager parents collect their children after a hectic day of primary school. But that's just the start of busy times for dozens of egg vendors across the city, deep in coastal Zhejiang province, who ready themselves to cook up a unique springtime snack favoured by local residents. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

Octavia Ccahuata prepares a guinea pig for cooking in her kitchen, which is fitted with cooking equipment that save energy and reduce smoke emission as part of the 'Hot Clean House' ecology project in the Andean town of Langui in Cuzco March 9, 2012. The Pontifical Catholic University of Peru (PUCP) developed the 'Hot Clean House' project, which uses solar power to warm houses and energy-saving technologies for cooking to counter extreme cold weather in the highlands. These technologies have been implemented in communities in the highlands of Cuzco. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

Slaughtered rats are displayed for sale at the market of Canh Nau village, 40km west of Hanoi on Dec 25, 2011. Canh Nau is known as rat meat village where people eat rats as well as other kinds of meat from animals such as pigs, cows and chickens. 1kg of slaughtered rats costs 80,000 dong (S$4.70). Rats were eaten as a result of poverty in the past but now they are eaten at the end of every month of the lunar calendar as a special dish and local media reported that an average of 100kg of rat are sold at the village per day. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

A vendor (centre) cuts slaughtered dogs for sale at his roadside stall in Duong Noi village, outside Hanoi on Dec 16, 2011. While animal rights activists have condemned eating dog meat as cruel treatment of the animals, it is still an accepted popular delicacy for some Vietnamese, as well in some other Asian countries. Duong Noi is well-known as a dog-meat village, where hundreds of dogs are killed each day for sale as popular traditional food. Dog-eating as a custom is rooted in Vietnam and was developed as a result of poverty. 1kg of dog meat costs about 130,000 dong (S$7.60). -- PHOTO: REUTERS

A woman poses with a locust on her tongue at a discovery lunch in Brussels on Sept 20, 2012. Organisers of the event, which included cookery classes, want to draw attention to insects as a source of nutrition. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

Slaughtered rats are displayed for sale at Dinh Bang market, 20km outside Hanoi, on Jan 24, 2008. People of Dinh Bang village eat rats as well as other kinds of meat from animals such as pigs, cows, chickens or rabbits. 1kg of slaughtered rats costs 50,000 dong. (S$2.90). -- PHOTO: REUTERS

Residents living beside railroad tracks cut up a dog for consumption after it was run over by a train in Makita City, Manila on April 21, 2006. Dogs used to be considered a local delicacy in the upland regions of Luzon island but the eating of the animals was banned years ago by the government. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

Leonardo Lima da Silva, 17, offers for sale to passing vehicles an armadillo that he and his brother hunted down to earn some cash, near Maraba in the Brazilian Amazon region, on Aug 18, 2009. In spite of the government prohibition of the sale of wild animals for meat, many people in the region still hunt commercially for a living. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

A Haitian woman eats a mud pie in the volatile neighborhood of Cite-Soleil in Port-au-Prince on Feb 9, 2006. Made of mud, mud pies are sometimes the only food available for the poor in Haiti. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

A typical dish in ant sauce is seen in the restaurant Color de Hormiga in Barichara on May 19, 2009. Every year during the April-June season thousands of Colombian farmers and inhabitants of Santander province collect ants culonas (Atta Laevigata) as part of a traditional ritual in the region. The ants, named 'Culonas' for their big size, are cooked and sold as exotic, specialized food. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

Lemurs illegally killed by poachers in Madagascar to be sold to restaurants as 'luxury' bushmeat are seen in this undated handout photograph. Endangered lemur species found only in Madagascar are being slaughtered and served up in local restaurants as poachers take advantage of a security vacuum on the island after a coup earlier this year. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

Cooks at the Solar de las Cabecitas (House of the Little Heads) restaurant prepare their specialty, boiled sheep's head served on a bed of rice, in La Paz on Aug 17, 2006. The dish, a delicacy in the Andean mining city of Oruro where the salty highland pasture gives the lamb its particular flavor, is the specialty of the restaurant which counts among its clientele Bolivian Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca and President Evo Morales. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

Ms Bertha Piranes drops a skinned frog into a blender to make a drink at a market in San Juan de Lurigancho, Lima, on Aug 16, 2006. The drink, popular with working-class Peruvians, is believed to cure illnesses ranging from fatigue to sexual impotency. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

Lemurs illegally killed by poachers in Madagascar to be sold to restaurants as 'luxury' bushmeat are seen in this undated handout photograph. Endangered lemur species found only in Madagascar are being slaughtered and served up in local restaurants as poachers take advantage of a security vacuum on the island after a coup earlier this year. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

Ms Ai Baorong, who raises flies and yellow mealworms, tastes maggots to check their quality, at her small farm in Jiyang County, east China's Shandong province on April 11, 2007. Inspired by a report about making money by raising maggots in 2004, Ms Ai began to raise flies and yellow mealworms at her hometown after she learned the necessary skills from a college course. Now her farm produces 30 tons of maggots each month, a portion of which are exported to the United Kingdom and South Korea, local media reported. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

A vendor cuts dog meat for sale at his roadside stall in Duong Noi village, outside Hanoi on Dec 16, 2011. While animal rights activists have condemned eating dog meat as cruel treatment of the animals, it is still an accepted popular delicacy for some Vietnamese, as well in some other Asian countries. Duong Noi is well-known as a dog-meat village, where hundreds of dogs are killed each day for sale as popular traditional food. Dog-eating as a custom is rooted in Vietnam and was developed as a result of poverty. 1kg of dog meat costs about 130,000 dongs (S$7.60). -- PHOTO: REUTERS

A woman prepares a dish of camel liver at her shop in Tamboal village market in Al Jazeera on April 16, 2011. According to the Sudanese Ministry of Animals Resources in 2003, the country produced about 72,000 to 81,000 tonnes of camel meat annually from 1996 to 2002. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

A worker holds cobra meat after the snakes have been stripped of their skins, at a Chinese restaurant in the ancient city of Yogyakarta on April 1, 2011. Snake hunters catch about 1,000 cobras from Yogyakarta, Central Java and East Java provinces each week to harvest their meat for burgers, priced at 10,000 rupiah (S$1.30) each, as well as satay and other dishes. Some customers said they believe cobra meat can cure skin diseases and asthma, and increase sexual virility. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

A worker kills a cobra for its meat at a Chinese restaurant in the ancient city of Yogyakarta on April 1, 2011. Snake hunters catch about 1,000 cobras from Yogyakarta, Central Java and East Java provinces each week to harvest their meat for burgers, priced at 10,000 rupiah (S$1.30) each, as well as satay and other dishes. Some customers say they believe cobra meat can cure skin diseases and asthma, and increase sexual virility. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

A chef prepares a cobra meat burger at a Chinese restaurant in the ancient city of Yogyakarta on April 1, 2011. Snake hunters catch about 1,000 cobras from Yogyakarta, Central Java and East Java provinces each week to harvest their meat for burgers, priced at 10,000 rupiah (S$1.30) each, as well as satay and other dishes. Some customers said they believe cobra meat can cure skin diseases and asthma, and increase sexual virility. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

Mealworm quiches are seen at the Rijn IJssel school for chefs in Wageningen on Jan 12, 2011. All you need to do to save the rainforest, improve your diet, better your health, cut global carbon emissions and slash your food budget is eat bugs. Mealworm quiche, grasshopper springrolls and cuisine made from other creepy crawlies is the answer to the global food crisis, shrinking land and water resources and climate-changing carbon emissions, Dutch scientist Arnold van Huis says. To attract more insect-eaters, Van Huis and his team of scientists at Wageningen have worked with a local cooking school to produce a cookbook and suitable recipes. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

An indigenous Miskito woman sells turtle meat at a town market in Puerto Cabezas, along Nicaragua's Caribbean coast on Aug 25, 2010. Around five hundred turtles are sold for food per month in the port. The going rate for turtle meat is approximately S$1.35 per 0.45kg. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

Rasima, a villager, dries 'ampo', a traditional snack made from clean, gravel-free dark earth, in Tuban, East Java province on March 29, 2010. Rasima is the village's only ampo producer, and can earn up to S$2.45 a day to supplement her family's income from farming. Although there is no medical evidence, villagers believe the soil snacks are an effective pain-killer and pregnant women are encouraged to eat them as it is believed to refine the skin of the unborn baby. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

A raw blood dish is displayed with cooked entrails at a restaurant in Hanoi on April 28, 2009. Frozen pudding from fresh duck or pig blood is a popular dish in the Southeast Asian country although duck blood is less consumed following bird flu outbreaks that have killed at least 55 Vietnamese since late 2003. In Vietnam, there appeared to be a degree of confusion towards swine flu which is not in fact linked to pigs alone -- but an assortment of swine, human and avian viruses. One bowl of raw blood costs 10,000 dong (60 Singapore cents). -- PHOTO: REUTERS

Grilled rats are displayed for sale in Suphan Buri province, 120km north of Bangkok, on Nov 2, 2007. Once struggling to make ends meet in pest-infested villages, Thai rice farmers are now making money out of the very scourge that has gnawed at their finances: rats. Thailand is the world's biggest rice exporter and roasted bandicoot rat has become a popular delicacy at roadside stalls despite costing twice as much as pork or chicken. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

Thai farm employee Somsak Inta, 36, puts two house lizards in his mouth prior to eating them in Nakorn Nayok province, 60km away from Bangkok on April 9. Somsak started eating lizards when was 16 as a means to treat health problems, which he claims could not be cured by modern medicine. He has since been eating lizards for over 20 years, believing, among other things, it increases his sex drive. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

A boy from New York's Public School 7 from the Bronx holds an hors d'oeuvre prepared with an insect, before eating it at New York's Museum of Natural History, on April 20, 2004. Noted chefs were preparing inventive dishes for school children with insects as part of the Museum's 'Adventures in the Global Kitchen,' a programme that highlights cultures around the world through their cuisine. The Museum was launching the programme in conjunction with the release of the new Imax film A Rainforest Adventure-Bugs. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

A vendor selling deep-fried spiders poses with a spider as she waits for customers at bus station at Skun, Kampong Cham province, east of Phnom Penh on March 14 ,2009. It costs S$2.45 for 10 deep-fried spiders, which come seasoned with garlic. The fist-sized arachnids are crunchy on the outside and taste like cold, gooey chicken on the inside. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

San Smey, 4, eats a piece of roasted rat in the provincial town of Battambang, 290km north-west of the capital Phnom Penh on Feb 19, 2004. With meat-eaters shying away from chicken because of the deadly bird flu virus rampant across Asia, sales of rat are rocketing in the impoverished southeast Asian nation. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

A United Sates (US) Marine drinks cobra's blood during a jungle survival exercise with Thai Marines as part of "Cobra Gold 09" east of Bangkok on Feb 14, 2009. Thailand launched its annual war games on Feb 4, 2009 with troops from the US, Japan, Singapore and Indonesia linking up with Thai forces for two weeks of joint military exercises. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

A cook cuts pieces of roasted cats inside the kitchen of the restaurant Le Zoo chez Felix which serves bushmeat in Abidjan on April 11, 2008. Wild animal meat, called bushmeat in Africa, is a traditional part of the diet in many countries of the continent. From Ivory Coast in the west through Equatorial Guinea to Kenya in the east, poaching to feed the bushmeat market is rampant and it is threatening entire species, including man's closest relatives, the great apes. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

A Chinese woman eats from an ox and dog penis dish at the Guolizhuang "strength in the pot" penis restaurant in China's capital Beijing on March 3, 2006. The restaurant offers more than 30 types of animal penises served in a Chinese hotpot style. According to the theory of traditional Chinese medicine, the penis of certain animals is full of nutrients which brings men energy. And because it contains gelatine albumen, it is said to have excellent cosmetic effects for women, especially beneficial for the skin. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

A man slaughters snake at a restaurant at Le Mat, dubbed 'Snake Village, some 10 km east of Hanoi on May 9, 2007. Le Mat, a village of new houses, old shanty homes, winding alleys and ancient temples with Chinese-style roofs, is known for consuming snake meat as well as using the serpents for medicinal purposes and its supposed qualities as an aphrodisiac for men. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

Andean women display a dish of roasted cuy during a guinea pig festival in Huacho, northern Lima, on July 20, 2008. The one-day festival includes an animal show and a food and fashion contest which features the guinea pig, native to the Andes. Cuy, a traditional fried or roasted guinea pig dish, dates back at least fifteen centuries to pre-Incan times. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

Locusts and worms are seen on a spoon after being cooked with olive oil for a discovery lunch in Brussels on Sept 20, 2012. Organisers of the event, which included cookery classes, want to draw attention to insects as a source of nutrition. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

Hard-boiled eggs cooked in boys' urine lie inside a pot for sale in Dongyang, Zhejiang province on March 26, 2012. It's the end of a school day in the eastern Chinese city of Dongyang, and eager parents collect their children after a hectic day of primary school. But that's just the start of busy times for dozens of egg vendors across the city, deep in coastal Zhejiang province, who ready themselves to cook up a unique springtime snack favoured by local residents. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

Octavia Ccahuata prepares a guinea pig for cooking in her kitchen, which is fitted with cooking equipment that save energy and reduce smoke emission as part of the 'Hot Clean House' ecology project in the Andean town of Langui in Cuzco March 9, 2012. The Pontifical Catholic University of Peru (PUCP) developed the 'Hot Clean House' project, which uses solar power to warm houses and energy-saving technologies for cooking to counter extreme cold weather in the highlands. These technologies have been implemented in communities in the highlands of Cuzco. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

Slaughtered rats are displayed for sale at the market of Canh Nau village, 40km west of Hanoi on Dec 25, 2011. Canh Nau is known as rat meat village where people eat rats as well as other kinds of meat from animals such as pigs, cows and chickens. 1kg of slaughtered rats costs 80,000 dong (S$4.70). Rats were eaten as a result of poverty in the past but now they are eaten at the end of every month of the lunar calendar as a special dish and local media reported that an average of 100kg of rat are sold at the village per day. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

A vendor (centre) cuts slaughtered dogs for sale at his roadside stall in Duong Noi village, outside Hanoi on Dec 16, 2011. While animal rights activists have condemned eating dog meat as cruel treatment of the animals, it is still an accepted popular delicacy for some Vietnamese, as well in some other Asian countries. Duong Noi is well-known as a dog-meat village, where hundreds of dogs are killed each day for sale as popular traditional food. Dog-eating as a custom is rooted in Vietnam and was developed as a result of poverty. 1kg of dog meat costs about 130,000 dong (S$7.60). -- PHOTO: REUTERS

A collection of images of bizarre culinary experiences from around the world.

From roasted cats to cobra meat burgers, see the various types of unconventional food people enjoy.